In the days after John Edwards’s withdrawal from the Democratic race, the political world expected his endorsement of Barack Obama would be forthcoming tout de suite. The neo-populist and the hopemonger had spent months tag-teaming Hillary Clinton, pillorying her as a creature of the status quo, not a champion of the kind of “big change” they both deem essential. So appalled was Edwards at Clinton’s gaudy corporatism—her defense of the role of lobbyists, her suckling at the teats of the pharmaceutical and defense industries—that he’d essentially called her corrupt. And then, not least, there were the sentiments of his wife. “Elizabeth hasn’t always been crazy about Mrs. Clinton” is how an Edwards insider puts it; a less delicate member of HRC’s circle says, “Elizabeth hates her guts.”

But now two months have passed since Edwards dropped out—tempus fugit!—and still no endorsement. Why? According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.

I will say that this plays into the worst perceptions of Obama, as someone who is far too fond of himself and far too confident in his charm to get people to do what he wants.

You have to be an egotist in order to run a real campaign for President, but the thing that has always disturbed me about Obama is the sense that he thinks that he is so personally awesome, and when he threw gays under the bus in South Carolina, I was wondering who is next.

At this point, I think that it is every major Democratic constituency, because he wants to show that he can reach across the aisle.

Basically, even though undoubtedly better equipped, and possibly better trained, the Iraqi Army and Police are getting their asses handed to them, because they are completely unmotivated. Unlike the Hakeem family, the army and police really don't like fighting for the idea of greater Iranian hegemony in Iraq, which is clearly the goal of the current government.

Sadr is the only major Shia player who isn't in the Iranian's pockets, but he's the one we are targeting air strikes at.

The core of the dispute is that bond ratings agencies have low rated municipal debt as compared to commercial debt for years.

This has meant that entities like the state of California have had to buy bond insurance to get AAA rates, despite the fact that the risk of default is negligible:

"We're selling water in a desert; we should be rated to reflect that," said Cary Casey, who oversees bonds at the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas that have a AA+ rating from Standard & Poor's. Casey said he's not interested in Buffett's insurance. "He's no savior."

The first municipal bond insurance policy was sold in 1971 by Ambac. The near bankruptcy of New York City in 1975 bolstered demand for the industry, said Richard Larkin, research director at brokerage Herbert J. Sims & Co. in Iselin, New Jersey, and a former chief municipal rating officer at S&P.

New York City creditors were paid in full. When Orange County, California, filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in 1994, only one issue defaulted and no principal or interest payments were missed, according to Moody's.

"The legalized extortion has been going on since before I became mayor of Somerville in 1990," said U.S. Representative Michael Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. Capuano said he was forced to buy bond insurance, even though his town of 80,000 had never defaulted and the state provided backup guarantees.

Emphasis mine.

Bond insurance to municipalities have been a protection racket for years, and not it turns out that the insurers, not the municipalities, are the ones with the problem.

I think that as we tease out the credit collapse, we will find many more examples of systemic corruption and extortion by Wall Street firms.

The FSM may be wrong, these guys are pirates, and global warming proceeds unabated.

One of the central "innovations" of Boeing's 787 plan was the idea of bringing in suppliers in as fully involved partners, where they would bear much of the risk, and be responsible for much of the design and engineering.

We can't have kangaroo courts if we expect anything but a further souring of our already toxic relations with the rest of the world, but after an orgy of law breaking and ass covering by people working in our name, it looks like kangaroo courts is all we got.

Their justification is that they want some of the B-52s dedicated to nuclear strike, as opposed to swapping squadrons in and out of the service, on the theory that they won't do stupid stuff like sending detonators to Taiwan, or flying live missiles by mistake.

Once again, the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat F&^%er) is being tasked to pull the Air Force brass's ass out of a fire.

I haven't followed this closely, quite honestly Africa is pretty much off of my radar, but to the degree that I have, it's painfully clear that Kibaki stole the election, and that he is being given a bit of a pass by outside powers, because he is seen as being "good for business."

The impetus here should be for an arrangement that respects the will of the people as it was actually expressed at the ballot box, and to the degree that Kibaki is backing away from these agreements, it should be made clear that this is not acceptable.

The meeting with Nawaz Sharif, .... have failed entirely. Sharif said that Pakistan would no longer be a "killing field" where other countries pursue their own interests.

...

[with tribal elders] "We told them that whatever differences we have (with the extremists), they can all be solved through the jirga system," said Malik Darya Khan, one of the tribal chiefs who participated, referring to the traditional meetings of elders to solve disputes.

There also appeared to be an open dispute between Sharif and U.S. officials on how to deal with Musharraf. Sharif said afterward: "We don't recognize him as the legitimate president."

Dawn newspaper, in an editorial on Thursday, described the arrival of the two U.S. envoys as "indecent haste." It added: "It is time Washington gave the new government time to settle down."

"Bad timing gives the wrong signals, as if they are trying to pressurize the new government when it is in the stages of being formed," said Shireen Mazari, the director general of Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.

"The war on terror has be to revisited. The most dangerous thing is that the Americans have succeeded in shifting the center of gravity of the war to Pakistan. We have to shift it back to Afghanistan," Mazari said.

Pakistani concerns about U.S. activity have been ignited over the last month by a series of apparent American missile attacks on targets in Pakistan. The news that the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, where hundreds of Muslim prisoners, many of them Pakistanis, have been held without charge, has been appointed the chief U.S. defense representative in Pakistan isn't likely to help relations.

I say that he is an optimist. The regional crashes we have seen, which have been much less severe, have all lasted at least 5 years, which puts the date at 2012, though I would take 2015 in the over/under in non-inflation adjusted dollar terms.

I don't think that we will be back to the 2006 highs adjusted for inflation in my lifetime.

Stupid move. Barack Obama just bitch slapped himself in an effort to separate himself from the man who married him and baptized his daughters.

This is wrong, we can disagree with people we love, and it's stupid, because it plays right into Josh Marshall's Bitch Slap Theory of Politics, where by not defending themselves, and in this case people who are near family, they make voters wonder if they will stand up for them.

This is stupid. It makes him look weak, and folks that he is reaching out to will never vote for a black man.

Small local money changers in Holland are refusing to exchange the dollar, since they don't typically exchange money back to Euros at the close of business each day, they think that the risk of a significant loss is too great.

And the South Korean pension fund that I mentioned yesterday are part of a trend which will likely see the end of the US dollar as the major reserve currency sooner than most people expect.

Both the USAF and Northrop Grumman are requesting that the Boeing Challenge be rejected, see here, here, and here.

Of more import is the fact that the UK just signed a contract for $13 billion for A330 tankers. Note that the contract is different, as it is to replace the RAF's Lockheed TriStar and Vickers VC10s, and the former are large, as opposed to medium tankers, but it points to a trend.

I think that Boeing is out of the tanker business for the next 10 years, until the money is found to replace the KC-10 tankers.

New Century Financial, whose failure just a year ago came at the start of the credit crisis, engaged in “significant improper and imprudent practices” that were condoned and enabled by auditors at the accounting firm KPMG, according to an independent report commissioned by the Justice Department.

It's increasingly clear that Cheney wanted provincial elections to go forward, and signed off on operations against the Mahdi Army to do this, not because they would prevent elections, but because Maliki wants to take them out to prevent Sadr's party from making political gains in the elections.

There were originally supposed to be 24 of these, then 7, and now 2, and they are being delayed, and the price has gone through the roof, with it now being quoted at $3 billion each, with realistic estimates putting it at $5 billion.

It's a bad program. 80%+ of any surface combatant's benefits are simply a product of their being afloat and available, so going with what are very large boats and fewer numbers gets fewer boats in the water, and this does is not outweighed by the additional capabilities of the larger boats.

27 March 2008

The Appeals court has ordered former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman released from prison pending his appeal. They overturned the ruling of his judge at trial, Mark E. Fuller, who is also a political foe of the former governor.

He's been in custody for some time, one of the reasons that Judge Fuller has dragged his feet on releasing the transcript, without which you can't even start filing an appeal.

I think that we are heading down a steepening slope, and I would not be at all surprised if there is blue water between the three islands that make up Greenland (they currently share an ice field) in my lifetime.

Basically, as opposed to launching one big satellite, like the one that the navy had to shoot down, you launch fractionated satellites, basically a cluster that orbit close to one another, and together provide the capabilities of a single larger satellite.

It means that a launch or satellite failure won't remove the capability, though it may reduce performance somewhat.

The program is from DARPA, and it's called "System F6" (future, flexible, fast, fractionated, free-flying spacecraft united by information exchange).

Not surprising, since his number one and two economic buddies are Alan Greenspan, whom McCain once famously said that if he died, he put sun glasses on him and do the Weekend and Bernie's thing, and Phil Gramm, who spent his career making wall street safe for scam artists.

They are numbers one and two on the "who f%&$ed Wall Street up" hit parade.

It may seem incredible to say this, given past experience, but a few years from now Europe and the world could be looking back at the Bush administration with nostalgia. This possibility will arise if the US elects Senator John McCain as president in November.

Emphasis mine.

Of course, this quote is no where near as disturbing as Harold Meyerson's in the Washington Post:

It is 3 a.m., and the stillness of the White House night is shattered by the ringing of the red phone. President John McCain, rousing himself from a deep sleep, turns on the light and picks up the receiver. A U.S. embassy in a Middle Eastern country, he is told, has been blown up, and al-Qaeda is taking credit.

But suppose, dear reader, that John McCain becomes president and Joe Lieberman doesn't bunk with the McCains on a nightly basis. How easily should the rest of us sleep? It's anything but an academic question after McCain's bizarre performance in Jordan last week.

As disturbing as the last image is, it's clear that McCain's solution to anything short of unstopping a toilet is to launch a military strike.

Military strikes against the DPRK and Iran would be almost certain, and I'd offer even money for shooting between Russia or China and the US.

They both make the point that this is an ongoing, and IMHO accelerating, loss of power for the US, though Münchau is rather more stark, first because he has been an unabashed fan of what I call US style klepto-capitalism, but also because of his the points that me makes:

The Euro would replace the dollar as the world’s largest reserve currency within the next 10 or 15 years. (I rather believe that it will be in 5-10 years, but I'm not an economist)

If yours is a global reserve currency today, it is likely to be one tomorrow too. But this works only up to a point – a tipping point.

But the Euro is a real alternative. [to the dollar as a reserve currency]

This has been a crisis of Anglo-Saxon transaction-based capitalism.

Losing the dollar as the world’s leading international currency not only leads to a loss of political power. It constitutes loss of power.

The short version is that the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) are having a vote as to whether to adopt Microsoft's Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) format for its office suite as a formal standard, and Cuba and India just voted no.

Microsoft had this voted down before, largely because there already is an ISO standard format out there, Open Dcument Format (ODF).

Microsoft, of course, uses OOXML, which is a proprietary format, notwithstanding its name, but with increasing numbers of users, particularly in government, demanding open formats to prevent vendor lock in, they want to be adopted as a "standard".

Microsoft's whole business model, of course, is vendor lock in.

Furthermore, as is made clear here, OOXML was written around the specific internals of Microsoft products:

Here is the Microflaccid office way of making text red:Word: <w:color w:val="FF0000"/>Excel: <color rgb="FFFF0000"/>Powerpoint: <a:srgbClr val="FF0000"/>

Specifically the Marines are installing the Embedded Platform Logistics System (EPLS), which works by determining the actual condition of the equipment, as opposed to implementing a fixed maintenance/replacement schedule by using sensors on the equipment and computer algorithms to determine when components are wearing out.

When I was working on the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV), now called the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), it was primarily on a prognostics demonstration for the landing craft.

It was a nice job, with a nice boss (Hi Dave), but it was the commute from hell (75 miles through the heart of DC), and the scope of the program was being increasingly reduced, and I figured that it was not too long before I would be de-scoped, so I found something with what was then United Defense.

The facts are quite clear, there is no tie between vaccines and Autism*, and this has been conclusively proven.

The doctor who came up with this cockamamie theory had his ticket yanked. The removal of Thimerisol (which was an independent good regardless of the non link to Autism) made no difference in the trajectory of the disease.

Vaccines represent the greatest success in public health in the history of...well..history.

When we see reports like this one the Neanderthal†anti-vaccination movement, the basic points which need to be made are as follows:

There is no evidence that vaccines are listed are linked to any disease.

The idea that there is a link to Autism is false and has been completely disproven.

This puts the entire community at risk, because unvaccinated children spread the disease.

It puts holes in herd immunity.

These basic points were not made in this article, though it was hinted at when the writer quoted Sybil "I'm a Moron" Carlson saying that vaccines caused "immunology".

Let's be clear. Vaccines do have risks, I know someone who is in a wheelchair because of a vaccine induced case of polio, and my mother had an allergic reaction to the horse serum used in the tetanus vaccine, but they are less than that of not being vaccinated, and they are acute, not chronic.

The anti-vaccine movement is based on two things, stupidity and ignorance involving the science, and a blithe disregard for for the effects of society.

That's why we are getting outbreaks of measles, mumps, whooping cough. Because these people are creating reservoirs of disease out of their children, and it affects the vaccinated too, because no vaccine is 100%, and some vaccinated children are put at risk.

*Full disclosure, my son is on the spectrum, diagnosed with Aspergers.†In deference to the GEICO cavemen, I wish to apoliogize for any offense to true Neanderthals.

I agree with his concerns. While Sadr is looking for a stricter theocracy, he is the most outspoken Shiite Iraqi nationalist in the game, while the other two main Shiite factions, (ISCI/SCIRI and Dawa) are firmly committed to Iran, possibly near-puppets of Iran.

The reason that the US does not make nice with Sadr is because he opposed to the US's Iraq forever plan, which Bush is irrevocably committed to.

The would-be imperial power has to back the 'less popular local elements.' The key thing is to find groups that are strong enough to hold on to power with external support, but too weak to come to be in a position to kick the ladder of external support away.

Any politician in Iraq who could become popular enough to have a meaningful and independent power base is a threat to the US presence there, and thus will be opposed by the US.

It's a dull, but very profitable racket, because there has been some sort of freaky deal between the monoliners and the rating agencies for years that has them offering artificially low ratings to muni bonds, which pretty much forces said governmental agencies to buy bond insurance.

If it works, it kills the monoliners, because this business is the only thing keeping them afloat on a sea of collateralized debt obligations (CDO).

Additionally, we have monoliner insurer FGIC notifying regulators that due to some "dodgy" dept that it is ensuring, that it is insolvent under New York State law, "FGIC in notes to its consolidated financial statements said it plans to submit a plan to the New York superintendent to reduce its risk. FGIC also said it has voluntarily ceased writing new business to preserve capital."

This means that, theoretically at least, regulators could seize the FGIC, though they are in litigation with the borrower of the aforementioned debt, and they are filing a recovery plan.

So we have Jake Tapper of ABC News reporting that a "Democratic Party official, who asked for anonymity", which could be anyone from Howard Dean to the guy who gets the coffee, saying, "Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.'" and then adding "Is that really what we Democrats want?"

While I appreciate Tapper's skills in parlaying a couple of dates with Monica Lewinski into a heavy duty "reporting" gig, first with Salon, and then with better paying media, he's a still a wanker.

He spent all of 2000 hating on Al Gore, because he missed a flight because they did not hold the press plane for him.

First, if this were someone senior, say someone of my generation (I'm 45) or older, they would not use this term.

Second, he didn't use the term "senior", which he would have used if it were defensible.

Furthermore, notwithstanding the use of the quote by some of the hyperventilating elements of the blogosphere, what we have here is someone, and someone not particularly senior saying what has been the standard line for places like MSNBC for some time: that Hillary Clinton is "destroying the party".

A lot of people are hyperventilating about a story with no "there" there, which I'm sure tickles Mr. Tapper no end.

The Forest Service is has very much the culture of the AG department, profits through harvest, with the National Forests having as their de facto primary purpose providing wood for the timber industry, and the Interior Department is about preservation of special places as an independent good.

To the degree that the Forest Service ends up more like the Park Service, that will be a good thing.

For veteran Washington hands—wheelers and dealers in the lobbying game or at the major interest groups—the new system is worse than dull. It’s emasculating. This is why political elites find polarization so distasteful. In a polarized world, elections and procedural rules largely determine policy outcomes; there’s little room for self-styled players to construct coalitions on the fly, and enhance their own power in the process. The growth in the lobbying industry might seem to belie the point, but consider Tom DeLay’s post-1994 “K Street Project”—which pressured lobbying firms who wanted access on the Hill to hire more Republicans—or the swing of the pendulum back after the Democratic takeover in 2006. Power in Congress is firmly in the hands of the party leadership; lobbyists become less powerful, not more, in a polarized system.

The fact is that outside of the beltway, no one really cares what David Broder thinks, or what gets said at Sally Quinn's parties, and if you have a political system in which party affiliation actually means something, neither do the members of Congress or the Executive branch.

It appears that we've got our first astroturf, Tankerblog.com, which has been anonymously registered, where they brethlessly reveal that A330 tanker cannot refuel the V-22, while the 767 could.

The blog describes itself as, "The blog is moderated by Mike Reilly who spends his days at the Center for Security Policy and a bipartisan group of legislative assistants who spend their days, and most nights, working on Capitol Hill."

These "staffers" are from the Seattle no doubt, and the CSP has among it members, Richard Perle, Douglas J. Feith, , Frank Gaffney - Project for the New American Century, Monica Crowley and , Laura Ingraham. (You can get a line on their right wing nut supporters here)

No reasons given for why the difference, and in the real world, if refueling were needed it would be done by a KC-130 turboprop, since using a jet to refuel a turboprop that has to operate below 15k feet because it is not pressurized is just nuts.

A bit of humor at this "blog" though, they have a poll on whether congress should stop the deal, and the pro EADS sides in winning.Tanker War Blog, unnamed bipartasin staffers in congress, from Washington state, no doubt. http://tankerblog.blogspot.com/ look at their poll...good yucks.

Additionally, Boeing complained that the Combined Mating and Ranging Planning System (Cmarps) system which was used to develop operational scenarios for the bidding, was something that NG was more familiar with, but seeing as how the software is over 20 years old, I think that this is more another example of how Boeing was being petulant in the bid process.

He's claiming that it's "unpatriotic" to poach people before he fires them, and he also, "threatened to cut counter-party credit lines to firms that poach Bear stars before the transaction is completed".

If I were on the jury, I would vote to acquit his murderer.

On a slightly more law abiding note, I believe that the Bear employees might have grounds for one hell of a class action lawsuit.

They are, of course, using the word "fix" much in the same way that my veteranarian does.

We are (run around and scream like a little girl) about 41 years from insolvency! Ten years ago we were 42 years from insolvency! Think about what this means?

Ummmm...that in 410 years we will be down to zero years? But what do I know about math...I'm an engineer.

I think that the earnings cap should be removed and a portion of the amount collected needs to be diverted to medicare, where there is a problem, but my main reason for wanting the cap raised is the same is Warren Buffett. We both find it completely absurd that his secretary pays more of her salary in taxes than he does.

The Republicans want to kill Social Security. There is no crisis, and it does not need to be fixed, but it is a Federal program, it does not kill people, and it helps ordinary people, so they hate it for philosophical reasons.

The response to Republican attempts to kill Social Security should be, "Over the Elephant's dead rotting body".

The banks that are supposed to back the deal, "Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG, Credit Suisse Group, Royal Bank of Scotland PLC and Wachovia Corp", appear willing to eat the termination fees, and the private equity firms aren't to interested in going forward either.

The only folks looking eagerly toward closing the deal are the founders, the Mays family.

The article describes the process as, "The negotiations have turned into a bizarre "kabuki" dance, said one person familiar with the situation. To protect against litigation, neither the private-equity firms nor the banks want to leave any doubt that they are committed to closing the deal. But their public actions have little to do with what's going on in private, say a number of people involved in the matter."

Basically, the first person to blink gets sued.

The deal is supposed to be for $19 billion, and a breakup fee is likely to be around $600 million, and if the banks repackage and resell the loan, which they really have to do, they are saying that it would have to be at around a 15% discount, which seems to me with my imperfect non-MBA math to show that it is cheaper to back out.

I wish that there was a way for all of them, particularly the Mays family, the creator of the cancer of the airwaves, Clear Channel, to lose.

The US blames the latest attacks on rogue Mahdi Army elements tied to Iran, but analysts say the spike in fighting with Shiite militants potentially opens a second front in the war when the American military is still doing battle with the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"The cease-fire is over; we have been told to fight the Americans," said one Mahdi Army militiaman, who was reached by telephone in Sadr City.

The force most closely linked to Iran is not the Mahdi Army. It is sectarian, but also Iraqi nationalist.

It's hard to say for sure, which of these factors [The surge, the Anbar Awakening, the Sadr ceasfire, or the Completion of ethnic cleansing in most of Baghdad] was the most important. The Bush Administration will tell you it's all about the troop levels. I've tended to believe it's more of a mix and was most inclined towards the Anbar Awakening and the sectarian cleansing as the important factors. But when you look at the data it really seems to indicate that the Sadr ceasefire may have been the key.

This might be a reasonable story, a tale of light at the end of the tunnel, except for the fact that by any reasonable metric, as Barry Ritholtz so ably notes, housing sales fell. They are down 28.3% from a year ago, and the uptick is actually a seasonal difference from January to February, which is conveniently ignored by the National Association of Realtors, who never tell the truth when a lie would serve.

Alan Greenspan the man who suggested in 2004 that the housing sector was, "in good shape", we would all be better off if, "lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage"?????

24 March 2008

While I think that some centralization of the "regulatory alphabet soup" is a good idea, one of the things you are hearing, particularly from the Bushies, is that there is a, "tangled web of federal and state regulators".

I think that this is Bush speak for cutting the states out of it, so actions like those of Elliot Spitzer* will be impossible.

On the other end of Pennsylania Avenue, you have Barney Frank, who I like, but truth be told, I think does not go far enough.

We have large organizations operating under the idea that they are too big to fail, and remember that Bear Stearns is a smallish player in this market, so this assesment is correct.

If the taxpayers are at risk, and they are, then the taxpayers must be allowed to regulate to minimize that risk.

America came out of the Great Depression with a pretty effective financial safety net, based on a fundamental quid pro quo: the government stood ready to rescue banks if they got in trouble, but only on the condition that those banks accept regulation of the risks they were allowed to take.

Over time, however, many of the roles traditionally filled by regulated banks were taken over by unregulated institutions — the “shadow banking system,” which relied on complex financial arrangements to bypass those safety regulations.

Now, the shadow banking system is facing the 21st-century equivalent of the wave of bank runs that swept America in the early 1930s. And the government is rushing in to help, with hundreds of billions from the Federal Reserve, and hundreds of billions more from government-sponsored institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

The behavior of the banks, or more accurately the individual people working in those banks, was quite mature, if amoral.

From top to bottom, the employees of these firms behaved in a manner consistent with those employees own personal best interests, as opposed to those of the firm or the market.

The name for such a system, where individual players arbitrage for their own personal best outcome is called Capitalism, by the way.

What we need to do is to ensure that taxpayers are not left on the hook down the road for decisions made for personal benefit now.

Among other things, this means that we need real regulations of wages and benefits in the financial services industries, with real consequences including asset forfeiture and jail.

People will continue to do stupid things for good results this quarter so long as their bonuses and promotions are a result of their performance in this quarter.

I would note that I have not yet come up with any specifics on how to limit excessive compensation for short term results beyond taxing all excessive taxes. I'll put my thinking cap on.

The push for quarterly results is what leads to excessive leverage, which is what has led to many of the problems.

In 1929, you needed about 20¢ to buy $1.00 stock on margin. Following the Roosevelt regulations it was 75¢ to buy that same stock on margin, though this was lowered to 50¢ in the late 1970s.

Bear Stearns was leveraged on the order of 50 to one, or about 2¢.

Leverage is essential to a modern financial system working, but excessive leverage causes a collapse.

We need to put government auditors in the major financial firms today, with the power to review all records and investments, and to demand changes.

Also, there should be a change in taxes. If the rich have to be bailed out, and this appears to be the case, then they should make the down payments on that bail out.

I would also suggest that a surcharge be added to income tax to which no credits or deductions apply, starting at the salary of the President (currently $400K) with a 1% surcharge, and increasing by 1% for each multiple above that (so $400k-$800K would be 1%, $800K-$1.2M would be 2%, etc), to a maximum marginal rate of 75% at around $180 million a year, which would apply to all forms of compensation (H/T to Dean Baker, see below, for noting the total compensation thing).

It would serve to put a brake on executive compensation, and generated some much needed revenue for the treasury.

It appeals to my vengeful side, but I think that my suggestion is better. It applies to overpaid athletes, drugged out pop stars, and worthless hotel heiresses too†, and provides resources to create a better and more just society.

*No, I mean his legal actions against Wall Street, when the FTC, SEC, etc., led by Bush and His Evil Minions™ were letting the foxes run the henhouse.†Let's be clear, I am keeping my promise not to mention They Who Must Not Be Named. I don't see no names, do you?

But it seems to me that the real reason the Democratic primary race has gone from heated to vicious (at least among the candidates' supporters, if not the candidates themselves) is precisely because we're in this awkward seven week hiatus in which there are no actual elections being held.

Boeing's delays on the 787 now rival that of Airbus on the A380, only once the problems with the European super jumbo came out, the all came out, and we are still getting this drip, drip, drip of bad news from Seattle Chicago.

This is yet another reason why the Boeing wonks who suggest that the 787 should have been used instead of the 767 are full of it, BTW.

I've wrong on most of my predictions, but I have not pushed policy prescriptions on the basis of those predictions.

You were were more than wrong, you were an accessory to evil, and an enthusiastic one at that.

You contributed to making us less safe, killing in excess of half a million Iraqis, driving more than a million from their homes, and damaged the United States for decades to come economically, diplomatically, and morally.

You cheer led for this evil.

The Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer was put to death for his cheer leading, and while your misdeeds are far more milder, simply saying, "oops, sorry", does not cut it

The F-16 I (see picture below), is a variant unique to the IAF, with conformal tanks and a spine for additional avionics, and given the IAF's specific needs, it likely has an air conditioning system tailored to this equipment, which is likely the source of the contamination.

It could come from combustion, but the path from combustor to cockpit would be unlikely.

The intervention of the Jewish holiday of Purim, which is celebrated by getting drunk until you cannot tell the difference between Verizon winning the C Block and Google winning the C Block, kept me from posting sooner.

OK, there aren't that many great telecommunications regulations jokes, but still, this is really funny....If you are Jewish.....and if you have been following the FCC's C Block auction.

My predictions, which are usually wrong, Oil is pretty much permanently above $100/bbl, the dollar has a way to go down still, probably settling sell south of $1.75:€1.00, and Gasoline prices will break $4.00/gal in a year, and that there will be overshoots on all of them.

But my predictive record sucks wet farts from dead pigeons.

It looks like the Federal Home Loan Banks will be performing the way that God and Herbert Hoover* intended, in that will be making things much worse by bailing out investors in bad mortgage bonds to the tune of $150 billion.

Hoover was a stalwart supporter of doing the wrong thing, back to his days in China, where he supporter what came very close to murder in Chinese mines.

Well, a few days, and a couple of deaths actually, see here (tasered while in handcuffs), and here.

Let's be clear on this: as long as Tasers are not designated lethal weapons, they will continue to kill, and as long as the police know that they can use them, and that they do not get automatic review that a peace officer does every time he discharges a weapon, police will continue to abuse this lethal weapon.

She had requested an audience in August (you know, in order to play politics with the conventions and the November election).

The pope has denied this request, ostensibly since it was his August holiday, but really for two reasons:

Bush and His Evil Minions™ in general, and Condoleeza Rice in particular, were hostile and rude to John Paul II when he sent emissaries out to attempt to prevent the war.

Because the US has steadfastly rebuffed requests from the "Holy See" to prevent the ethnic cleansing to of the Christian minority in Iraq.

Condoleeza Rice should not be too upset by this, "Instead of meeting the Pope, Ms Rice had to make do with a telephone conversation with the Vatican's number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was visiting the US during August on other business."

So, he won't talk to her, but his number two will talk to her on the phone.

NYT: As a prominent evangelical pastor based in San Antonio, you were recently catapulted into national controversy when you endorsed Senator John McCain for president. Is it true that McCain actively sought your endorsement?

John Hagee: It’s true that McCain’s campaign sought my endorsement.

Mr. "Straight Talk" doesn't give a damn. There is no corner he won't cut, nor any value he won't turn his back on, in order to be president.